This archive report was first published on 10 May 2020.
On May 10, 2020, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) launched an investigation into a cargo company accused of tax evasion through the importation of undervalued and undeclared goods.
According to sources from the KRA, investigators are seeking to establish if the company deliberately under-declared consignments or smuggled taxable products.
Customs officials and Directorate of Criminal Investigations detectives visited the company's facilities on a fact-finding mission and found a consignment of electronic goods, mainly mobile phones, that had just been imported.
The officials want to ascertain if the goods were undervalued to evade levies due to the government, which led to suspicion of a cartel fleecing taxpayers of millions of shillings.
Preliminary investigations point to a collusion between the owners and some rogue KRA officials, with the latter facilitating false declarations, thereby denying the taxman requisite taxes such as import duty.
“We suspect they also allow in counterfeits. We are investigating, together with KRA, the claims,” said an official at DCI who asked not to be named.
The probe comes on the heels of a report by Rolling Cargo Ltd that it had lost mobile phones valued at Sh120 million which were on transit.
